What are you thankful for?

I'll start this off. I'm thankful for Dawn Dishwashing Liquid, top hats, computers, my friends and family, an algorithm named Dog, and the fact that I'm finally writing again.

The great thing about Thanksgiving is that people are thankful in a generic way. They don't seem to thank gods or demons or whatnot, though there are surely pockets of such stupidity. For the most part, it's just a feeling of gratitude. And that's how it should be. The fact that we're here, that we exist at all, is the most amazing coincidence of all.

So, me bloggies, what are you thankful for on this fine Thanksgiving day?

The benefits of atheism

Susan Jacoby has an interesting op-ed at the NYT. Here's an excerpt:

When I try to help a loved one losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, when I see homeless people shivering in the wake of a deadly storm, when the news media bring me almost obscenely close to the raw grief of bereft parents, I do not have to ask, as all people of faith must, why an all-powerful, all-good God allows such things to happen. 

Go read it. It's good.

God needs to go

Todays' AP:

A man charged in a brutal rape and stabbing attack on a lesbian couple in Seattle two summers ago has admitted to the attack in court, saying God told him to do it.

And god told those idiots to ram planes into the World Trade Center ten years ago. There is no room for gods in this world. No room at all.

God needs to go.